Laura Black

About Laura Black

Since 2007, Laura Black has been writing for both Constructech magazine and its sister publication Connected World magazine, focusing on articles that help business professionals understand the value of technology.

Apprenticeship programs offer a lot of benefits including hands-on training that leads to greater quality and safety on construction projects. But should these programs be required to work on a job? One city is now saying yes.

It’s time to talk safety. A lost life or injured worker is devastating for families, but it is also impacting your bottomline. To be forthright, worker injury is costing your business big bucks. In fact, the National Safety Council says it costs businesses roughly $1,400.

At the end of August, the Constructech team had the pleasure of touring the New Stanford Hospital project, which was impressive to say the least—stay tuned for in-depth coverage on Constructech TV later this month—but it has me thinking a lot about working on a jobsite.

It’s that time of year again. School is back in session for most, and it has me thinking about how construction-technology education is approached and adopted at the university level. My interest was piqued further when I saw an announcement about how construction-management students at Colorado State University, www.colostate.edu, Fort Collins, Colo., are being trained on both construction process and technology.

I have been writing about the residential construction software market for more than 10 years, and I have watched as the market has become smaller, mostly through M&A (merger and acquisition) activity.

Did you know 69% of construction organizations are manually re-entering data from application to application? 69%. The number doesn’t shock me, but unfortunately the inability to share and act on data across multiple systems is still such a big obstacle in the construction industry.

I have been thinking a lot about estimating lately. It seems to crop up as one of the key areas of focus for many construction companies. A good estimate often directly equates to a good bottomline, which is why it is so essential for construction companies.

Are corporate owners behind the tech curve? This was a question we explored in a feature article in our Spring issue of Constructech magazine—and something I believe we need to address more in-depth here in this series of blogs that are exploring how data flows throughout the supply chain—from subs, to GCs, to owners. I have already explored challenges and opportunities for subcontractors, and key considerations for general contractors. Now, it is time to look at data through the eyes of the corporate owner.